In The Land of the Northern Lights

After six months and 50,000 still images, photographer and video artist Ole Christian Salomonsen presents us with this masterpiece video of the stunning aurora borealis shimmering in the cold night skies over Tromsø, Norway.

“A goal for me has been to try to preserve the real-time speed of the northern lights, or come as close as possible, and present it way I experienced it, instead of the northern lights just flashing over the sky in the blink of an eye. It may work on other time-lapse videos with skies and sunsets etc, but with the northern lights in focus, it should be presented in its true speed to reflect her beauty, IMO.”

– Ole Christian Salomonsen

The results are, simply put, beautiful. Especially to those of us who have never had the chance to witness the phenomenon of aurorae in person…but I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be moved by this wonderful work of art.

The soundtrack was provided by local musical talent Per Wollen. The track “Aurora in the Sky”, released today, can be downloaded from iTunes.

Amazing job on this, Ole! Thanks for sharing with all of us, and thanks for permission to repost it here on LITD. One of the best aurora videos I have seen from The Land of the Northern Lights! (And to think it’s his “first video project”!)

They are best seen at the northernmost and southernmost latitudes, where night during the winter is very dark and the skies are cold and clear. Plus a bit of heightened solar activity sure does ramp up the action a lot!